Courageous Parenting

1

It Takes Three to Make Parenting Work

According to a famous quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln, “You can fool
some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time,
but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”

With apologies to Mr. Lincoln, we want to edit his statement into this important
word to fellow parents: “You can fool some of your children all of the time,
and all of your children some of the time, but you can’t fool all of your children
all of the time.”

In other words, the only way to make parenting work the way God intended
is to keep it real! Our desire in this book is to help you accomplish this in
two major ways: first and foremost, by sharing what God’s Word has to say about
the demanding and immensely rewarding task of being a parent; and second, by
sharing the successes, mistakes, and observations we have accumulated along
the way in this wonderful, and often frightening, task of parenthood. We promise
to share our hearts with you at the most real and transparent level we can achieve.

We are not experts, but we have learned some things from being parents and
serving in the pastorate for well over thirty years. We’ve seen the good, the
bad, and the ugly when it comes to the home and family. This includes many wonderful
and successful marriages and families, from whom we have learned valuable and
positive lessons. And we have observed many families in trouble. So we know
something of the downside as well as the upside of parenting.

We were married on May 22, 1970 and have raised three children. (We offered
to include a fold-out section of photos of our grandson in the book, but the
publisher politely declined!) We made a commitment early on to apply biblical
principles in our marriage and childrearing, and God has blessed us incredibly.
Our two sons and our daughter love the Lord and are serving Him faithfully.
We can say with the apostle John, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my
children are walking in the truth” (3 John 4).

Becoming a parent is relatively easy. It doesn’t require any prior education,
qualifications, skills, or experience—or even the cost of a marriage license
in some cases. But there is a huge difference between becoming a parent and
successfully parenting the child we have brought into the world. Here is our
bottom-line conviction and the basic premise of this book: God designed the
task of bearing and raising children to be accomplished in the power of His
Holy Spirit within the bonds of a faithful, loving, lifelong marriage. This
has to be the place to start, even though it is obvious that many marriages
do not last a lifetime. Trying to be a marital partner and parent without understanding
God’s intention is like trying to cut a photograph to fit a frame without knowing
the dimensions of the frame.

If you are reading this book as a single parent, we want to encourage you
in your difficult task. But regardless of your current marital status, if you
are a Christian, the power of the Holy Spirit is available daily to help you
raise your children “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians
6:4).

This goal is within the reach of every parent or prospective parent— regardless
of background, education level, social status, or economic condition. This truth
should give all of us hope that we can be successful parents and raise children
who become mature, responsible adults and committed followers of Jesus Christ.

One wag said, “Love at first sight is nothing special. It’s when two people
have been looking at each other for years that it becomes a miracle.” Well,
we have been looking at each other for over thirty-five years now, and it is
still getting better and better. We like what we see in each other because of
the Lord’s presence in our lives and marriage. He is the One who has enabled
us to build our marriage and family on the fundamentals of His Word.

Every winning team in any sport majors on the fundamentals of the game. They
keep going back to the basics. They go to training camp every year, even if
they won it all the season before, because you never outgrow your need of the
basics. These are the things we want to present in this book.

A Great Marriage Requires Three People

It is highly unlikely that a husband and wife who are unhappy and completely
at odds in their marriage, or are indifferent and content to let their marriage
deteriorate, can then turn around and become an effective set of parents doing
a dynamic job of raising their children. Family life doesn’t work that way.
So we want to begin where God’s Word begins, with a man and a woman coming together
to form a marriage and a family.

God Himself performed the first marriage, as recorded in Genesis 2:22. The
Bible says, “And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into
a woman and brought her to the man.” Then God blessed the union of Adam and
Eve: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to
his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (v. 24).

This was not simply the first marriage ceremony, but a picture of the three
people it takes to make a great marriage. Two people become one flesh in marriage,
but then those two people also become one spiritually when they are joined in
spirit to God in the Person of Jesus Christ. He is the third Person at the center
of a great marriage.

Jack: Guys, let’s get real for a minute. Many men spend more time working
on their golf game, hobby, or profession than they do working on their marriages.
But marriage is not a 50-50 arrangement in which all you have to do is kick
in your half of the deal. Marriage demands a 100 percent commitment from both
spouses. And since God wired women to be responders, when you give all of yourself
to your wife, she is going to respond in kind, and you will begin to enjoy a
fulfillment in your marriage you never thought possible!

But it starts with you, because you are the thermostat that regulates the
temperature in your marriage. Your wife is the thermometer that records and
reflects either the warmth or the frigid conditions in your home.

Marriage Is God’s Idea from the Beginning

Let’s not forget who invented marriage and the family. This was God’s idea!
Therefore marriage is not a human contract that can be broken at will but a
divine covenant established by God to be supreme over all other earthly relationships
and complete in its commitment. And since God created marriage, He has given
us the “manual” to make it work in the pages of His Word.

We can even find helpful marriage principles in the most unlikely places
in the Bible, as in these verses from the Old Testament:

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil.
For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone
when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together,
they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might
prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord
is not quickly broken. (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12)

Here is the cord that can tie married life together and keep it strong even
when the world tries to topple it. Those three cords are you, your mate, and
the Lord Jesus Christ.

God Wants to Be Part of Your Marriage

Please don’t misunderstand. Simply being Christians by itself does not guarantee
that a man and woman will have a happy marriage. Perhaps you heard about the
pastor who went to a fourth-grade class to talk to the children about home and
family. At one point the pastor asked those nine-year-olds, “Can any of you
tell me what God says about marriage?”

There was a long, quiet pause before a little boy raised his hand. “All right,
son,” the pastor said. “Tell us what God says about marriage.”

The little boy responded, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they
do!”

We have to admit there are too many marriages even between Christians in
which one or both partners would echo that little boy’s honest reaction. Someone
has said that marriage is like a three ring circus: there is the engagement
ring, the wedding ring, and suffer-ring. It’s possible even for believers to
have a three-ring circus marriage. But God’s ideal and will is a “threefold
cord” marriage in which Christ is the center and heart of the relationship.

God Put His Blessing on the Marriage Union

A marriage like this is possible in Christ! You can’t spend enough money
to buy it, which is good news for most of us. J. Paul Getty, who was one of
the richest men in the world, once said, “I would give my entire fortune for
one happy marriage.”

But great marriages are not built on fortunes. They are built on the blessing
of God when two people bind themselves to Him as they bind themselves to each
other. Outside of a person’s relationship with Christ, there is nothing on earth
more precious and valuable than the relationship between a husband and wife.

Remember, it was God who blessed the first union between a man and a woman.
Again, the Bible says of Adam and Eve:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them,
“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion
over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every
living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:27-28, emphasis added)

The blessing that God built into marriage is not only evident in the spiritual
realm but in the physical as well. Research has now shown that a strong and
happy marriage is profitable emotionally and physically. For instance, we now
know that married people live longer than unmarried people and report a higher
degree of happiness and satisfaction in life. They also go to doctors less often
and make less use of health care services.

Someone even researched mortality records dating back to the nineteenth century
and found that the highest suicide rates occurred among the divorced, followed
by the widowed and the never-married, while the lowest rates of suicide were
among married couples.

We could cite many examples that agree with these findings, both on the positive
and negative side. Many of us had a front-row seat and watched first in awe
and then in sadness as the famous marriage between Britain’s Prince Charles
and Lady Diana unraveled in front of the world.

Literally the whole world watched as these two were united in a storybook
royal wedding in 1981. The pomp and circumstance were incredible. It was a never-to-be-forgotten
wedding.

But the royal marriage itself was another story. It soon became little more
than fodder for the tabloids and then ended in tragedy when Diana was killed
in a car accident.

God Wants Us to Work at Our Marriages

Sometimes people say, “I believe our marriage was made in heaven.” Whether
that’s true or not, one thing is sure. Marriages are worked out on earth—and
it takes a lot of work to make a marriage work. When some people’s marriages
start to go sour, instead of working on the relationship they say, “Well, I
guess I missed it on this one. Maybe God will bless my next marriage.”

That kind of thinking is not only unbiblical but ignores the truth that marriage
is a day-to-day growth process between two people who are committed to stay
at it and enjoy the immense rewards of a fulfilling marriage. Our salvation
is free, the gift of God to us (Ephesians 2:8-9), but a great marriage comes
at the price of diligent work.

Here’s something to think about in that regard. The apostle Paul wrote: “Work
out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). We just
said that salvation is free to us. But even this marvelous grace-gift has to
be worked out—nurtured, cultivated, given careful attention—as we apply it to
our lives on a daily basis.

And notice that Paul told us to work out our salvation “with fear and trembling.”
That’s a reminder that the great salvation God purchased for us at the cost
of His dear Son’s blood is not something to treat casually or take lightly,
like a stroll in the park.

So here’s a logical question. If something as divine and supernatural as
the gift of salvation—something definitely made in heaven—needs to be worked
out, how much more does the gift of marriage need to be worked out? The answer
suggests itself! Marriage is God’s gift to us, and our diligence to make a home
and family that brings Him glory is our gift back to God.

God Supplies the Power That Makes Marriage Work

The reason we can make marriage work is that we are not working alone. Paul
provided this truth as he continued in Philippians 2: “For it is God who works
in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (v. 13). The apostle
was speaking of our salvation, but the principle applies to marriage. It is
God’s will that marriage be lifelong. Jesus said, “What therefore God has joined
together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:6). God will supply His power to
those who seek Him. But without this, our efforts won’t get us anywhere.

This is why it is so important to understand that marriage is truly a threefold
cord. Solomon was not just being poetic in Ecclesiastes 4. Without the third
cord, the Lord Jesus Christ, to bind a relationship together, it can quickly
unravel as a married couple starts using the “D” word.

Divorce Doesn’t Solve Anyone’s Problems

Divorce has become a tragedy of epic proportions in our culture. We’re living
in a time when more and more people throw away their marriages with the idea
that they’ll start over with someone else. And perhaps most tragic of all, this
idea that marriage is disposable has crept into the church. Divorce statistics
for Christians have caught up with those of the secular world, and there seems
to be no letup in this trend.

Jack: The Bible says that God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16). Yes, there are
certain very restricted cases of unfaithfulness where divorce is permitted.
But it is not commanded. Our culture seems to love divorce. People view divorce
much like they view abortion—as a way to escape the consequences of their choices.

But divorce doesn’t solve anyone’s problem. My experience as a pastor is
that most marriages are abandoned for no good reason, by which I mean for no
biblical reason. I have seen far too many marriages end in divorce that could
have been saved. Most marriages that fail do so because of a lack of obedience
to God and a lack of commitment to one another.

Even adultery does not have to be a cause of divorce if the guilty party
repents and is forgiven, and if the marriage partners earnestly seek restoration
and the rekindling of their love. Biblical love is an act of the will, a matter
of obedience to God, which is why the Bible can command us to love one another.

Deb: We hear people say, “I just fell in love.” This is often the romantic
ideal presented to girls and young women by music, movies, and popular culture
in general. There is no denying that two people may feel attracted to each other
even at their first meeting, but that is not love. You don’t fall in love the
way you fall over a chair or fall into a hole, suddenly and without warning.
People speak of love as if it is such a strong emotion there is nothing we can
do about it once it takes hold of us. Love certainly involves the emotions,
but at heart it is a commitment of our will to seek the other person’s best
interest at any cost.

Marriage is a lot like a mirror. When you see yourself in a mirror and realize
you need some work, that’s not the time to break the mirror and walk away. Marriage
is a very accurate mirror of what is really happening in a person’s life. So
if your “marriage mirror” reveals some things that need attention, don’t break
the marriage and walk away. That’s the time to deal with the problems—to get
back to the fundamentals of God’s Word.

We’re Losing Our Families

The importance of getting marriage right reaches far beyond the four walls
of our houses. The breakdown of the God-ordained institution of marriage should
be a serious concern to all of us, because as we look around it is obvious that
we’re losing our families. And as the family goes, so goes the entire culture.
It doesn’t matter how much the social engineers talk about a new paradigm of
the family. None of the unusual, or even bizarre, “family” arrangements we see
today can replace God’s plan for one man and one woman to raise their own children
in the context of a loving, committed marriage and nurturing home.

Jack: I will never forget the day one of the ministers at our church broke
down and wept at a staff meeting. He works with young marrieds and was telling
about several couples with problems who were talking about divorce after just
a few years or even months of marriage. This man has a tender heart, and it
was breaking as he saw these couples drifting apart. We prayed as a staff that
God would do a mighty work in their lives to heal their marriages and keep them
from breaking their covenant.

Let me say again that marriage is not a human contract but a covenant—a promise—made
before God. Human contracts can be altered or nullified, but the promise that
marriage partners make is “for as long as [they] both shall live.”

The statistics on family breakdown are startling. One million children a
year in America are negatively influenced by divorce. The divorce rate has gone
up so astronomically that the numbers are staggering. At the beginning of the
twentieth century, the divorce rate was about 12 percent. Now it’s up to around
50 percent—half of all marriages.

God Can Restore a Marriage

So how do we go about restoring marriages and rebuilding homes? The same
way we would eat an elephant, one bite at a time. It has to be done one marriage,
one family, one victory at a time. Rather than accept things as they are, we
can move forward to things as they ought to be because God can restore any marriage
that has been torn by conflict or withered from neglect.

Many Christian homes used to have a little plaque or cross-stitch on the
wall with this declaration of faith: “As for me and my house, we will serve
the LORD” (Joshua 24:15). We baby boomers and Gen-Xers don’t hang slogans like
this on our walls anymore, but maybe we should! What a wonderful daily reminder
of the commitment God wants and expects from us. If each of us, one couple at
a time, will take a stand for the Lord, we can gnaw away at the “elephant” of
divorce and family breakdown.

During the early days of World War II, as England was being besieged by Nazi
air raids, many of the people were ready to abandon their homeland. That’s when
British leader Sir Winston Churchill is said to have declared, “Victory is not
won by evacuation!” And the people stood their ground. We want to make the same
statement about marriage.

Victory is not won by evacuation—by abandoning our commitments, giving up,
quitting—but by persevering by the grace and power of God.

When All Else Fails, Read the Directions

A soldier who begins a march on the wrong foot will be out of step the entire
way unless he recognizes his mistake and makes a conscious effort to shift his
feet so he can follow the drill sergeant’s marching orders.

One problem with many marriages is that they get started on the wrong foot.
That is, many couples don’t really understand the purpose for which God created
marriage. So they get married for all the wrong reasons—for sex, money, or status,
to fulfill an infatuation, or perhaps worst of all, because everyone else was
getting married and it seemed like the thing to do at the time.

Marrying for the wrong reasons is bad, but the good news is that even couples
who started their marriage on the wrong foot can pull it together. Because God
is the Restorer of marriages, these couples can have wonderfully satisfying,
God-honoring marriages and can become great parents.

Actually, all of us need to be reminded what marriage is really about, which
is why it helps to go back and read the directions in God’s Word. In Genesis
2 we learn why God created Eve and brought her to Adam.

The order of events in this chapter is very interesting because God wanted
to teach Adam his need for someone else. So after announcing, “It is not good
that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for [or, comparable
to] him” (v. 18), the next thing God did was not to create Eve, as we might
expect, but to create the animals and bring them to Adam so he could name them.

God did this to show Adam that He had provided a mate for every animal. And
as Adam named each one, he also learned that none of the animals was his type.
He named everything from the aardvarks to the zebras but did not find “a helper
fit for him” (v. 20). And even though Adam had a good life in a perfect environment,
he suddenly realized something was missing. He felt alone for the first time.

God already knew that Adam’s aloneness was “not good.” But it wasn’t until
Adam realized it that he was ready for Eve. That’s when God fashioned Eve from
Adam’s rib and united the two in marriage with this instruction: “Therefore
a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to [or cleave to]
his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (v. 24).

The foundational purpose of marriage is that both the man and the woman find
their completion in one another, so that together they can fulfill God’s design
for their lives. When the Bible describes Eve as “fit for” or “comparable to”
Adam, it means she corresponded to him. Adam was incomplete without Eve. He
needed a helper to complete him and to complete the human race. Woman was created
to be man’s completer, not his competer.

We noted above that the verb “hold fast to” in Genesis 2:24 can also mean
“cleave,” as it is translated in the King James Version. This is a great word
that means “to cling to, to stick to” like glue. Jesus even quoted Genesis 2:24
when He warned us not to try and tear apart a marriage that God has glued together
(Matthew 19:5-6).

Eve was the cure for Adam’s aloneness and incompleteness. The two of them
were like two pieces of a puzzle that fit together perfectly and completed the
picture of marriage.

Put Your Marriage Before All Other Relationships

Giving marriage its proper place in our relationships is a challenge we face
today that Adam and Eve didn’t have to deal with—at least not at first. Marriage
changes every other human relationship. Some previous ties are severed, and
others are moved down a notch on the priority list because a new Number One
is in town.

This seems so patently obvious that some may wonder why we even mention it.
But we all know there’s nothing automatic about this process. God knew it too,
which is why He told the man to “leave his father and his mother” in Genesis
2:24 before He told him to cleave to his wife. Some couples spend a lifetime
trying to get the leaving part right.

As both parents and parents-in-law, we know how hard it is to cut those parental
strings. But we also understand from our own experience, as well as from Scripture,
how important it is for young couples to leave their homes and establish a home
of their own.

We were just kids when we got married while in college. Our parents helped
us with our school bills, but we were committed to make it on our own. Sometimes
young couples decide they will move in with Mom and Dad until they get on their
feet. But that can be a conflict waiting to happen. There’s a reason they make
television sitcoms out of arrangements like that! It can be very funny on the
screen, but very unfunny in real life. No one has ever improved on God’s plan.

Friends can also be a challenge. Some men marry with the mentality that they
are just adding one more buddy to their group—a nice addition to the gang who’s
prettier and smells better than the rest! A new husband will often be teased
by his single friends about being “out of commission” or “ball-and-chained”
because he doesn’t hang out with them as much anymore.

But the jokes and teasing can’t obscure the fact that a husband who understands
God’s design for marriage knows that his wife is his new best friend as well
as his life partner. It works the other way too. Today’s women generally have
a much wider circle of friends and acquaintances than their grandmothers had
because most modern-day women live in much larger communities and also work
outside the home. Those relationships also have to be subordinated to the marriage
partnership.

A friend told us about a young family that once lived next to him in the
Dallas area. The couple began having problems, and it wasn’t long before the
husband left. During this time the wife almost nonchalantly told my friend that
the women she worked with were encouraging her to divorce her husband, telling
her she didn’t have to put up with him. They even offered to help her find a
divorce attorney who could make sure she got a good settlement. Unfortunately,
she made it clear to our friend that she was taking their advice, and this couple
eventually divorced.

Now to be sure, there were serious problems in that home. But this illustrates
the undue influence friends can have if these relationships are allowed to supersede
the marriage bond. Thankfully, many of us can also point to godly friends who
are a great example, encouragement, and blessing.

Don’t get us wrong. It’s great to have friends. But marriage is sort of like
it was when we were kids. Remember how you could have lots of friends but only
one best friend? And you had to let that other kid know he or she was your best
friend so he or she wouldn’t become someone else’s best friend. And you had
to stick with each other, at least until one of you changed his or her mind.

Well, husbands and wives have a one-and-only best friend in each other. And
they need to stick with each other. Being best friends as well as lovers is
a great way to build a marriage. It’s one thing to divorce a spouse, but it’s
much harder to divorce your best friend.

Put Another Log on the Fire and Fan the Flames

As husbands and wives we need to ask ourselves, “Am I doing whatever it takes
to strengthen my relationship with my mate? Am I engaging in any attitude or
action that is detrimental to my marriage? Is there anything in my life that’s
driving us apart rather than bringing us together?”

The fire of love and commitment in your marriage may be burning low right
now, but it can be rekindled in Jesus Christ. Just because the flames in a fireplace
have died down to glowing embers doesn’t mean the fire is out. Just put a fresh
log on those embers, fan them a little, and the flames will rise.

Your marriage can burn brightly when you commit your lives to Jesus Christ
and then determine to rekindle the love and devotion you once enjoyed in your
marriage. Great parents are prepared and nurtured in great marriages!